"I will not call my cellar 'The Coffee Pot' lest a worse thing befall
it."
"You are a sensible young woman, Miss Barbara Ann Waterbury."
"It is true that my parents named me that," said she, "but my friends
call me 'Barbran' because I always used to call myself that when I was
little, and I want to be called Barbran here."
"That's very friendly of you," I observed.
She gave me a swift, suspicious look. "You think I'm a fool," she
observed calmly. "But I'm not. I'm going to become a local institution.
A local institution can't be called Barbara Ann Waterbury, unless it's a
creche or a drinking-fountain or something like that, can it?"
"It cannot, Barbran."
"Thank you, Mr. Dominie," said Barbran gratefully. She then proceeded to
sketch out for me her plans for making her Coffee Cellar and herself a
Local Institution, which should lure hopeful seekers for Bohemia from
the far parts of Harlem and Jersey City, and even such outer realms of
darkness as New Haven and Cohoes.
"That's what I intend to do," said Barbran, "as soon as I get my Great
Idea worked out."
What the Great Idea was, I was to learn later and from other lips. In
fact, from the lips of young Phil Stacey, who appeared, rather
elaborately loitering out from behind the fountain, shortly after my new
friend had departed, a peculiar look upon his extremely plain and
friendly face.
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